to the ones who lost something and need to heal
by Sapphire Pirate
Summary: He has no real reason to go talk to her, he knows that. Third piece in the "to the ones that didn't last the night" series.


He has no real reason to go talk to her, he knows that. But she seems familiar, not like Steve is. Steve is a childhood of pulling a snarky little shit out of alley fights and weeks of worrying if he was gonna make it through the latest sickness. Wanda is months of experiments and new, unnatural powers that change her life and a lifetime of regrets.

At this point, it feels like he has more in common with Wanda than he does with Steve, though he loves Steve more than he can explain.

Still, that doesn't give him a reason to stand outside of Wanda's room, hesitating to knock. He has her shawl clutched in one hand, the other hovering just over Wanda's door. If he knocked, he could just hand her the shawl and leave without having to say anything.

That option gets stolen away from him when Wanda opens the door and sees him standing there, a small, understanding sort of smile on her face. "I could hear your thoughts," Wanda says by way of an explanation. He thinks that this should make him feel uneasy, but it doesn't - it just feels natural. She moves aside to make room for him, making it clear that he should enter her room.

He does, standing awkwardly in the middle of her room once he's inside. Wanda looks at him, waiting for him. Instead of saying anything, he holds her shawl out to her. She takes it from him, a small smile on her face. "Thank you for it," he says, his voice hoarse.

Wanda watches him. "You are welcome." After a moment, she holds her hands out to him, wanting to see his reaction. He slowly reaches his hands out to hers', letting Wanda hold his hands. "You're hiding from everyone. Why?"

It takes him a bit to come up with an answer. "I'm not who you think I am."

She smiles at him. "And who do you think I think you are? The great war hero, James Buchanan Barnes?" Wanda squeezes his hands. "You're no more James Barnes than Steve Rogers is the same man he was before he crashed a plane into ice seventy years ago."

He stares at her, trying to understand where she's getting this from. After a long moment, he smiles at her, a full-out, Bucky-flirting smile. "You're a lot smarter than people give you credit for, you know that, Maximoff?"

Wanda's face lights up then, her smile growing. "What do we call you, then?"

There's no hesitation this time, though his smile softens around the edges. "Bucky. Call me Bucky."

* * *

It takes time, as anything does. Bucky doesn't immediately go back to being himself once he's put into Steve's care, but everyone's learned that nothing in life is ever that simple - especially given what Bucky went through in HYDRA's control.

Though, no one expects it to take so long for Fury to check in on them. By the time he does, the rest of the Avengers have already made their acquaintances with Bucky and have formed a new routine with him in it. Fury doesn't make a huge fuss about Bucky being there, like everyone expects him to do. Instead, he spends the day just watching Bucky interact with everyone - sees him speaking Russian with Natasha, discussing the pros and cons of guns or arrows with Clint, trading quips with Sam about how they're bound to have a rematch, sitting quietly in Bruce's lab - which is still empty, letting Tony look over his arm again, doing breathing exercises with Wanda (because it helps both of their anxiety). Fury just watches all of this happen. He can tell that they're all on alert if something happens that makes Bucky turn into the Winter Soldier, but other than that they're fine.

Maria Hill comes up to him when Fury's considering taking his leave, after barely having said a word to any of the Avengers. "Do you think they're ready?"

Fury's nod is the only reply she gets before he's gone.

* * *

It's a week later when everyone finds out what Fury was really there for.

(They've found Bruce, miraculously, in the time that it takes Fury to arrange whatever. He's quiet, but then he's always been like that. No one's surprised when Natasha and Bruce finally work out whatever it is they need to work on, so everyone's on fairly - not exactly perfect - good terms.)

Maria gets them all into the main lounge area, saying something about Fury having to tell them all something very important. Of course, she knows that it's not exactly telling them but showing them something. When they see what is is Maria was talking about, they all shut up.

There isn't a person in the room who's jaw hasn't dropped at the sight of the person who just walked into the room.

Bucky hadn't been that much of a surprise - they'd all known that Steve and Sam had been searching for him since SHIELD collapsed.

This on the other hand, this is completely unexpected.

Wanda's the first one to react, her first true, full smile in months lighting up her face as she races toward him, though not as fast as he does towards her. The two of them meet in the middle, their arms wrapped around each other as Wanda cries in relief, her heart, her _soul_ feeling whole again because he's back, _he's alive_.

Much to everyone's surprise, Bucky's the next one to make a move. He walks towards the twins, unsteady but sure at the same time, as contradictory as that is. Wanda doesn't look up from where she's buried herself into her brother's arms, but Pietro looks up at him, the boy's eyes widening in recognition. "Glad to see that Steve's orders still mean something," Bucky says, and it takes Pietro a few moments to figure out what it is Bucky's talking about.

When he does realize what Bucky's referring to, Pietro smiles. It's tiny, but Bucky counts it as a victory. After all, he seems to realize without words that whatever it is that the boy's been through, Bucky's probably been through it too. "It is good to see that he's been giving that order since the old days," Pietro says in reply, holding an arm out to Bucky while the other one stays tight around Wanda. Bucky clasps Pietro's arm, the two of them doing the warrior handshake before returning to their previous positions.

Once the two of them have separated, everyone starts moving again. "Is there any reason in particular why you didn't tell us about this until now?" Steve turns to Fury first, having taken his moment to greet Pietro before directing his attention to Fury. The supersoldier is pissed, and Fury actually doesn't have a clue why. It's only when he looks over to Pietro, to Wanda who is still clutching her brother, that he begins to get an idea of what's happened since Ultron.

"In case it didn't work," Fury answers, and there's no way in hell he misses the way Wanda holds onto Pietro just a little bit tighter. "It was a risky procedure, much like Coulson's was. There was the bullets and the time spent out of medical care. Plus, we didn't know exactly how his metabolism worked now, so we didn't want to get anyone's hopes up." The dirty looks fade a little, now that everyone understands why it is Fury and Maria kept Pietro's survival under wraps. Fury knows that it's because they've all been there and they've all had their hopes pulled out from under their feet before.

He may not look like it, but he does care enough to keep some things from repeating themselves.

* * *

The first time Bruce goes to see Wanda, she nearly throws a chair at his head. As it is, it's hovering halfway off of the ground, dangerously close to Bruce's person for the Hulk's comfort, though Bruce seems to be doing an okay job at keeping the Big Guy calm. "Can I come in?"

He takes the fact that Wanda hasn't actually thrown the chair at him yet as a good sign. It doesn't escape Bruce's notice that this is the first time that he's actually been alone with Wanda ever. He'd actually kind of been hoping that Pietro would be there so that he could apologize to them both at the same time. By the look of things, it doesn't look like Bruce is gonna get what he wished for.

Though she's still watching him carefully, Wanda nods and puts the chair back to where it was. Bruce steps into Wanda's room, observing the little decorations Wanda's put up and the various mementos lying around that prove that Wanda actually lives there.

"What do you want?" And okay, Bruce isn't upset that she's wary of him. After all, the last time he'd actually spoken directly to her, he'd basically threatened to kill her. So, this is actually an improvement.

Bruce pulls his hands out of his pockets, holding them up in a non-threatening manner. "I'm not here to be mad at you or anything, Wanda. I came here to apologize to you, and to Pietro." The hard look in Wanda's eyes doesn't fade, though he can see the confusion that's creeping on the edges of her expression. "Before Vision was created, I told you that I could choke the life out of you without changing a shade." As he says it, Bruce watches as Wanda tenses back up, ready to throw the chair at him at a moment's notice. "I wanted to say that I was wrong."

Wanda shifts slightly on her feet, uneasy since Bruce stopped talking. "Wrong about what?"

And this is the point where Bruce should probably admit that he didn't think he'd make it this far into his attempt to reconcile with the twins. "Wrong about you and your brother." Wanda's expression doesn't change, so Bruce figures he has to continue. "I thought that both of you were just bad - and especially after what you two did to us in South Africa, I think that was fairly justified." Bruce lets out a sigh. "My mind didn't actually change about you two until I came back."

There's a twist to Wanda's mouth that looks bitter to Bruce's eyes, though it could just be that he needs new glasses. "Pietro wasn't here then - we all still thought he was dead." She cocks her head to the side then, a slight furrow in her eyebrows proving that Bruce's piqued her curiosity - he supposes that's one thing left over from her childhood. "What made you change your mind about us?"

"Your grief," Bruce answers, and he knows Wanda isn't expecting him to answer so quickly, given the way her eyebrows quirk up. "There was something about your grief, maybe just that you were still grieving, that made you seem more…human, in a way." He shrugs because he knows that he'll never be able to fully explain what made him see Wanda and Pietro, then dead, in a different light. "I just thought I should say sorry."

He's at the door when Wanda speaks up. "I am sorry too, Doctor Banner." Bruce looks over his shoulder at her and nods. She nods back to him, and it's all they need to continue with their lives, crazy as they are.

* * *

Vision is curious about Pietro, to put it simply. Of course he is aware of the "coming back from the dead" aspect that seems to follow the Avengers wherever they go, but this is the first time that Vision has encountered it firsthand. (JARVIS's disassembly and subsequent reassembly doesn't count.)

Though, it doesn't take very much to learn that it's one of those "things" that is simply not mentioned amongst the Avengers. So, Vision goes about it in a far subtler manner. He leaves pieces of paper in Pietro's common hangouts, containing only titles of books by people who claim to have died and then having been brought back by medical means and what they experienced.

He thinks that Pietro appreciates them, but he's never exactly certain. The papers are always gone when he checks, though.

 _ **What is your opinion of Pietro Maximoff?**_ he asks JARVIS one day, sitting in the common area and watching the trees outside of the windows. Vision realizes that he's never exactly spoken to JARVIS on this topic before, the thought never crossing his mind.

It takes longer than Vision expects it to for JARVIS to provide an answer. _He is lost, much like his sister. It will take longer for him to find his purpose in life again._ Like many things that Vision speaks to JARVIS about, Vision thinks that JARVIS has learned these things from his time with Tony Stark. (Vision's actually talked to JARVIS about many things, and it occurs to Vision that Tony Stark has been through many things that aren't considered normal. Then again, only a few of them in the Avengers had been through "normal" things.) _Why ask about him now?_

 _ **Because he is Wanda's brother.**_

This time JARVIS is the one who takes a few moments to respond. _I see_. The conversation seems to end there, not touching the bubble that may or may not be Vision's emotions, complete and separate from those that JARVIS eventually gained. JARVIS's silence seems to be a consent of some sort for Vision to find comfort elsewhere, besides his own head.

Often, Vision wonders what would happen if he informed the other Avengers about JARVIS's presence in his mind, whether they would call him insane or not. Proof could easily be given, should Vision ask JARVIS for answers to the questions that the Avengers would undoubtedly ask. But that feels like an invasion of privacy. He is not JARVIS, though JARVIS continues to live on in his head.

With this in mind, Vision seeks Pietro out.

He finds him with Steve and Barnes, the younger of the three listening to war stories, mostly told by Steve. Vision doesn't interrupt them, too interested to hear the outcome of this story that he's managed to stumble upon. Steve's laughing as he continues to tell the story, finding it too amusing to maintain a straight face.

"So we're standing there, surrounded by a bunch of Nazis who can't get their extra bullets out of their jackets when Bucky looks up and says - 'Man, you guys really need a new fashion designer'." That's enough to send Barnes and Pietro into fits of laughter. It even brings a smile to Vision's face. It's then that Steve looks up and sees Vision, finally getting his laughter under control but letting his grin stay strong. "Vision," Steve greets the synthezoid, gesturing for Vision to join them where the three of them are sitting on the floor.

Vision does, mirroring their cross-legged position. "Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, Mister Maximoff," he greets them. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Steve shakes his head. "Another friendly face never interrupts. What's up?"

The synthezoid shakes his head. "Nothing is the matter. I only wished to spend some time amongst you. It seems as though my 'human interaction' skills are in need of work."

Barnes lets out a loud snort then. "Couldn't be any worse than mine, buddy." Steve shakes his head again, and Vision notices the way Steve seems to want to argue against Barnes's statement. Perhaps another time, when Vision has not come seeking their company. "You couldn't've wanted to see all of us," Barnes is continuing, bringing Vision's attention back to him.

Vision doesn't understand it, how Barnes is able to read people so easily and with such accuracy even after so long away from most people. "Yes, I was actually looking for Mister Maximoff here." Pietro's head raises slightly then, the boy clearly curious about why Vision would want to speak with him of all people. Only then does Vision realize what incredibly poor planning this idea had, the synthezoid having no idea what to say next. "I have hand time to interact with and learn everyone's personalities and their behaviour. I'm afraid I cannot say the same about you, Mister Maximoff," Vision says, feeling proud of himself for speaking his thoughts so coherently, though they only scratch the surface of the truth.

Pietro smiles easily at Vision. "What would you like to know?"

 _ **Everything.**_ "Whatever it is you feel comfortable with sharing with me, Mister Maximoff."

"Call me Pietro." Vision nods and smiles at Pietro, listening as Pietro begins to describe his and Wanda's childhood.

* * *

"Thank you," Wanda says many hours later, sitting with Vision in the lounge as the two of them stare out the huge windows at the stars above their heads. He doesn't ask her what for, though it seems unnecessary as she gets the question from him anyway. "For talking to Pietro, for learning about him and us. It's important for him to talk about it, who we used to be."

Vision looks at her, and admires how she looks in the starlight. "You're very welcome, Miss Maximoff." Wanda bumps their shoulders together at that. "Wanda," Vision corrects himself, turning back to look at the stars.

Maybe he would get the hang of this being alive thing after all.


End file.
